High altitude is also super vulnerable to SAMs, because missiles now generally outperform aircraft and the higher the altitude, the more SAMs will be able to see and possibly fire on the target.
In the current battles over Ukraine, it appears to be the case that high flying, non stealth former Soviet aircraft simply can’t fly into areas defended by patriot and other modern SAMs.
There are also near future weapons like fiber lasers, in experimental use on USN ships, that have the advantage of a beam that cannot be avoided, if the aircraft is in LOS and detected its probably dead.
Combined arms to support your drone armada with laser trucks, main point is that arms races don’t necessarily keep improving 2 sides and keeping them even.
The drones you propose likely make infantry pointless, the main reason infantry has any use is limited drones were available in 2023. If Ukraine successfully builds 1 million FPV drones like they say they will, and they continue to have a 1⁄3 success rate, that’s 300k soldiers lost to the Russian army in 2024. At a certain point it’s not going to be be viable to use infantry at all, in the same way horses are no longer used on the battlefield.
Laser trucks might simply make high altitude aircraft mostly pointless.
High altitude is also super vulnerable to SAMs, because missiles now generally outperform aircraft and the higher the altitude, the more SAMs will be able to see and possibly fire on the target.
In the current battles over Ukraine, it appears to be the case that high flying, non stealth former Soviet aircraft simply can’t fly into areas defended by patriot and other modern SAMs.
There are also near future weapons like fiber lasers, in experimental use on USN ships, that have the advantage of a beam that cannot be avoided, if the aircraft is in LOS and detected its probably dead.
Combined arms to support your drone armada with laser trucks, main point is that arms races don’t necessarily keep improving 2 sides and keeping them even.
The drones you propose likely make infantry pointless, the main reason infantry has any use is limited drones were available in 2023. If Ukraine successfully builds 1 million FPV drones like they say they will, and they continue to have a 1⁄3 success rate, that’s 300k soldiers lost to the Russian army in 2024. At a certain point it’s not going to be be viable to use infantry at all, in the same way horses are no longer used on the battlefield.
Laser trucks might simply make high altitude aircraft mostly pointless.